The Dream-Country
All my life I've had lucid dreams and lucid nightmares, and as varied as they are, they have one thing in common: they all take place in a landscape which is an odd mish-mash of places where I've lived down the years and some I've only visited, and some I only know about from books and articles -- but which endures. That's the odd thing: it endures. There are places in it I've visited again and again over a period of many decades, places I've never been to in life, but seem to be as real upon the plane of dreams as places in the waking world are on that plane.
One such place is compounded of Newport Beach and its several islands in Orange County, California, about 10 miles south of Santa Ana; Isla Vista, California, a student slum next door to the University of California at Santa Barbara; and various places up and down California's South Coast. Unlike any place in the waking world I've ever been, however, it exists on a large square of land with two sides fronting the Pacific Ocean; one side is oriented east-west, and faces south, while the adjoining side is oriented north-south, and faces west. There are large, expensive, old-money homes there along the north-south side, with a lagoon to the south of them and a bar of land separating the lagoon from the ocean. Salt bush and ice plant sprout in clumps here and there on both sides of the lagoon and along the shore just west of the homes. Sometimes there's a small carnival right at the point where the two ocean-facing sides of the land come together, very much like the one at the tip of Newport Beach's Lido Isle where the ferry slip is located, right across from Balboa Island and its own ferry slip. There's always a strange feeling about such dreams, either an ominousness or a sadness, or a mixture of the two, that is more important than the scenery. In them I am either entirely alone or with people I've never met in life, or which I only met long after I was out on my own. And the part of that area that looks so much like Isla Vista is green and verdant, with apartment buildings and individual homes pretty much where they were when I was living there, long ago -- but everyone I knew there is long gone, and I'm on my own, and finding a place to stay there is a nightmare.
Then there are the dreams of fire. In those dreams, or, rather, nightmares, I'm hurrying away on foot from a place where fires are breaking out rather aggressively, usually through fields filled with head-high growth of some kind, perhaps grass or wheat. Sometimes I'm hurrying along an area with a fence on one side, usually on the west, and there are elements that suggest it's located just west of Isla Vista, in the area between the old Deveruex School and Hollister Avenue. That area, in the waking world, had no fences when I lived there, at least not within a couple of miles west of Storke Road, a north-south roadway which connects El Colegio Road, the road bounding Isla Vista on the North, with Hollister Avenue. At other times, the area seems to be somewhere near Los Angeles, California, perhaps out by Whittier, where there was still some open country when I was young. But wherever I seem to be, the main element is fire, wildfire springing up out of nowhere, sometimes with the threat of explosions due to large tanks full of petroleum staggered here and there throughout the fields where I am fleeing the fire.
There are also the dreams in which I am somewhere in Newport Beach, usually on Balboa Isle. In those dreams, I normally gravitate to the northern side of Balboa Isle, which in the waking world as well as in my dreams, is separated from the mainland by a canal. In my dreams, the beaches on the southern side of that canal, part of Balboa Isle, are far wider, richer in color, and more blessed with sunlight than those in the waking world. And no one there is anyone I knew when I was a child.
The thing about these dreams is that the real estate in which they take place doesn't exist in the waking world because it comprises medleys of three or more places in the waking world that are widely separated from one another. Yet these dream landscapes occur again and again in my lucid dreams and nightmares, and have done so since I was a young child. Perhaps both the waking world and that of dreams are real, with permanent landscapes that we visit or live in asleep or waking as the case may be, and the dream landscapes are no more only products of our unconscious minds than those of the waking world. Or perhaps both are constructs of our unconscious minds -- or, more likely, of the collective unconscious.
The main difference between the two types of landscape is that the landscapes of my dreams have a far lower human population density than those of the waking world. The dream country is literally colder and darker and, at the same time, more color-rich and complex, than anything the waking world has to offer. Even my nightmares are color-rich, deep and complex, filled with fantastic colors and structures.
What does it all mean? I really don't know. But when I die, I have a hunch I'll find myself in the landscapes of my dreams.
One such place is compounded of Newport Beach and its several islands in Orange County, California, about 10 miles south of Santa Ana; Isla Vista, California, a student slum next door to the University of California at Santa Barbara; and various places up and down California's South Coast. Unlike any place in the waking world I've ever been, however, it exists on a large square of land with two sides fronting the Pacific Ocean; one side is oriented east-west, and faces south, while the adjoining side is oriented north-south, and faces west. There are large, expensive, old-money homes there along the north-south side, with a lagoon to the south of them and a bar of land separating the lagoon from the ocean. Salt bush and ice plant sprout in clumps here and there on both sides of the lagoon and along the shore just west of the homes. Sometimes there's a small carnival right at the point where the two ocean-facing sides of the land come together, very much like the one at the tip of Newport Beach's Lido Isle where the ferry slip is located, right across from Balboa Island and its own ferry slip. There's always a strange feeling about such dreams, either an ominousness or a sadness, or a mixture of the two, that is more important than the scenery. In them I am either entirely alone or with people I've never met in life, or which I only met long after I was out on my own. And the part of that area that looks so much like Isla Vista is green and verdant, with apartment buildings and individual homes pretty much where they were when I was living there, long ago -- but everyone I knew there is long gone, and I'm on my own, and finding a place to stay there is a nightmare.
Then there are the dreams of fire. In those dreams, or, rather, nightmares, I'm hurrying away on foot from a place where fires are breaking out rather aggressively, usually through fields filled with head-high growth of some kind, perhaps grass or wheat. Sometimes I'm hurrying along an area with a fence on one side, usually on the west, and there are elements that suggest it's located just west of Isla Vista, in the area between the old Deveruex School and Hollister Avenue. That area, in the waking world, had no fences when I lived there, at least not within a couple of miles west of Storke Road, a north-south roadway which connects El Colegio Road, the road bounding Isla Vista on the North, with Hollister Avenue. At other times, the area seems to be somewhere near Los Angeles, California, perhaps out by Whittier, where there was still some open country when I was young. But wherever I seem to be, the main element is fire, wildfire springing up out of nowhere, sometimes with the threat of explosions due to large tanks full of petroleum staggered here and there throughout the fields where I am fleeing the fire.
There are also the dreams in which I am somewhere in Newport Beach, usually on Balboa Isle. In those dreams, I normally gravitate to the northern side of Balboa Isle, which in the waking world as well as in my dreams, is separated from the mainland by a canal. In my dreams, the beaches on the southern side of that canal, part of Balboa Isle, are far wider, richer in color, and more blessed with sunlight than those in the waking world. And no one there is anyone I knew when I was a child.
The thing about these dreams is that the real estate in which they take place doesn't exist in the waking world because it comprises medleys of three or more places in the waking world that are widely separated from one another. Yet these dream landscapes occur again and again in my lucid dreams and nightmares, and have done so since I was a young child. Perhaps both the waking world and that of dreams are real, with permanent landscapes that we visit or live in asleep or waking as the case may be, and the dream landscapes are no more only products of our unconscious minds than those of the waking world. Or perhaps both are constructs of our unconscious minds -- or, more likely, of the collective unconscious.
The main difference between the two types of landscape is that the landscapes of my dreams have a far lower human population density than those of the waking world. The dream country is literally colder and darker and, at the same time, more color-rich and complex, than anything the waking world has to offer. Even my nightmares are color-rich, deep and complex, filled with fantastic colors and structures.
What does it all mean? I really don't know. But when I die, I have a hunch I'll find myself in the landscapes of my dreams.